George Fu Gao

Director-General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) , Vice President of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Director and Professor of CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dean of Medical School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. George obtained his PhD (DPhil) degree from Oxford University, UK and did his postdoc work in both Oxford University and Harvard University. Using interdisciplinary methods, including virology, immunology and structural biology, Gao has made remarkable contributions to the study of inter-species pathogen transmission. His work revealed the origin and interspecies transmission mechanism of avian influenza virus including the virus entry mechanism and T-cell molecular recognition. He is a leading figure for the control of infectious diseases in China and a world advocate voice of global public health strategy. He led China Mobile Laboratory Testing Team in the fight against Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014 and continued his leadership in China CDC’s efforts supporting public health capacity strengthening in developing countries in Africa. George is elected as the foreign associate or corresponding fellow/member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Third World Academy of Sciences, African Academy of Sciences, German National Academy of Scineces, US National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Microbiology, European Molecular Biology Organization, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the dean or professor of medical school/universities. He has published more than 600 peer-reviewd papers, including papers in Cell, Nature, Science, The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA etc., 17 books or book chapters and holds more than 25 UK, US and Chinese patents. George was awarded the TWAS Prize in Medical Science in 2012 and the Nikkei Asia Prize in 2014, and with numerous awards and prizes from China, including the recent National Award for the Distinguished Scientist in 2016, the National Science and Technology Award and National Innovation Award in 2017.